Healing Hurts

If you’ve been to physical therapy for a chronic injury, you’re well aware that healing is pain. There’s typically much more to ridding a nagging injury than receiving a pleasurable massage.

Damaged tendons and ligaments are especially stubborn. Healing them is a game of months, not weeks.

I had a hamstring tendinopathy that lingered for months, and no amount of light exercise or massage would have any noticeable effect. It wasn’t until I focused on a spot-specific isometric hold, and performed multiple sets of 30 seconds, twice a day, that the hamstring started to get better. It’s difficult to get blood flowing through tendons, which is why it’s difficult to stimulate new cell growth.

I now know that isometric holds are the key to healing tendons. An isometric hold is a muscle contraction held in a fixed position and in one place, often against some sort of resistance. For example, if you were to use a leg extension machine in a weightroom and push to full leg extension, then hold that extended position, you would be engaged in an isometric hold. A wall sit could also be an isometric hold.

The isometric hold that helped my hamstring was challenging as hell, but I figured a few minutes of hell each day is better than a lifetime of possessing a bad hamstring.

After the hamstring recovered, I found myself wondering how many chronic injuries in the world would have healed, had hustle culture allotted more time for those afflicted. Who has the time to perform physical therapy exercises each day, in addition to routine exercise, work, and the daily obligations of adulting? Better yet, who really wants to when there are so many other lingering stressors dancing around in the mind? I suspect injured tendons often don’t heal for this reason. Instead, damaged tendons often steadily degrade until they eventually die.

Healing hurts, and similarly, I’ve noticed that once you’ve passed a life apex, maintaining the status quo hurts. Use it or lose it, the saying goes. This applies to both the body and mind.

If you don’t give your mind new stimulus and strain in the form of challanges, it eventually gives way, like a damaged tendon. Maybe we should treat our minds like a tendon in physical therapy,

So a good life requires pain, ironically, and to some extent, pain should be embraced.

Performance Oriented

I often find myself conflicted over how extensively I should chase performance, particularly in regards to athletics and creative writing.

There is a satisfying feeling when sacrificing time and effort to maximize one’s ability. For example, I’m glad that I ran the Boston Marathon.

Conversely, I sometimes reflect on the mornings I spent engaged in a two hour run and think that I’d have been happier lounging and watching a new film, or eating ice cream by the pool, or sipping coffee in a cafe and listening to music. Why engage in this compulsive and borderline self-abusive nonsense when there’s life to enjoy?

On the other hand, I enjoy the competitions and constantly look forward to the next one.

Performance results only carry relevance if they mean something personally to you. It meant something running the marathon, but I’m not sure it meant enough to justify the training as time well spent.

The act of chasing performance is still a chase, after all. And chasing can be exhausting. Chasers are more often than not oblivious to what’s going on around them, and worse yet, chasing can easily leave one trapped in an industry’s hamster wheel. Plenty of industries have capitalized on the human need to maximize performance and sell products to the chasers, often in the form of a subscription (for example, running shoes and energy gels). Leave the chase and you don’t need the subscription.

The counterargument to that would be that goals keep us invigorated. Having a goal gives us something unique to look forward to, and character growth from a unique journey.

Sometimes I think it would be better to slow down. Conversely, there’s a certain pride in knowing that I’m one of the few that can still compete, and that it keeps me young by trying to speed up.

This may always be an inner conflict. Moderation was never something that came naturally to me.

Reminiscing

I met with an old colleague for an hour run on Saturday. I missed him and told him that our conversations in the office kept me working in the corporate world far longer than I intended to. I don’t miss the work, but I do miss some of the people.

The run started at a Grant's Trail entrance and looped around a half-mile hilly gravel path that we circled about ten times.

We both turned 40 this year and enjoy the endurance stuff in our spare time (although I am going shorter in distance these days). He told me that he went fishing with his son about a week ago and watched him reel in his first catch.

“That is a cool thing,” I said, “to experience all those first moments again you might’ve forgotten about, through someone else’s lens.” And suddenly, listening to that story, memories of my own childhood flooded my mind, of being at a pond in the dense Carolina woods with my brothers and casting our own fishing poles into the water.

We found ourselves talking about aging and how little sleep we needed as kids. I used to often stay up all night watching TV and playing Nintendo, even on weekdays. In high school I would stay up for Jay Leno’s Tonight Show or some hyperviolent anime, or just whatever was playing on SyFy channel. Sleep be damned. If I was a slave to the system during the day hours, the night was my time.

I couldn’t imagine myself doing that now. I’m the worst version of myself if I sleep for less than seven hours and as the Hulk would say, “You won’t like me when I’m angry.”

I bring that up because we noted that 40 feels the same as 30, but if one looks backward carefully enough, the signs of change become more apparent. One doesn’t often notice the first stages of a cavity.

Then I think that yeah, I guess I don’t recover like I used to.

We were the last generation to grow up without phones, to require imagination for preventing boredom, and to lack social media. It’s easy to connect with someone over that experience.

What a great generation to grow up in. I believe that makes us lucky as hell.

40, Forging Ahead

The 40th birthday arrived, which I didn’t think would ever happen. For so long it seemed like a speck on the horizon that a journeyman would never reach. Then one day you wake up and you’re walking in it: the middle. It fully envelopes you and is here to stay, and a new speck forms on the horizon ahead: 50.

Someone asked me if the birthday was scary and I responded that no, I’m good with most things that age doles out. The inevitable wrinkles, gray hairs, slower recovery times, ailing body parts, and (hopefully not) weakening memory are inevitable. I’m at peace with all of that. It’s the acceleration of time that worries me more.

I’ve written before that the mind tends to group memories of similar days together. If you work a predictable 9-5 office job, the mind will group memories of days, weeks, months, and years into one big chunk, creating the “last year felt like a day” phenomenon. Maybe it’s a matter of efficiency. So if you want to keep time from pushing its foot on the accelerator, the best thing you can do is remain spontaneous.

I lived much in my 30s. I lived in China for two years, moved to Saint Louis, got a cat, toured San Francisco, relaxed at Lake Michigan, hiked the Shawnee trails (and drank wine on said trails), hiked North Carolina waterfalls, hiked Yellowstone, hiked in Utah, wine tasted almost everywhere in Missouri, ran four marathons included Boston, healed a broken collarbone, lived without a car for two years, swam with sharks in the Bahamas, sipped fine Sonoma wine, toured the Florida keys, held an albino alligator, visited Mexico, visited Russia, visited France, saw most of my favorite metal bands perform live, biked the eastern US coast, learned to sleep, met my partner, and learned to accept who I am. At least that’s what initially came to mind.

So here’s to an increase in spontaneity for the next 10. It would be nice if that keeps time at stalemate. That’s what I’ll tell myself, even though I’ve seen every Final Destination film and know what’s inevitable. Managing to keep time moving slow might be an impossible task, but one can try.

I might be a little more sore the next time I find myself in a moshpit, but I’ll still be at the show.

Making Versus Receiving Good Luck

It was about 20 years ago at this point, but I remember taking a college course on personal business practices.

I was a competitive swimmer in college and had to miss the midterm exam for the NCAA championships. This meant scheduling a later date to retake the exam, which I had to take alone in the professor’s office, in his company, to ensure I didn’t cheat.

Before and after the NCAAs, I completely neglected studying for the exam. I took the class as “Pass/Fail,” which one can elect to do for a limited number of classes. This meant that I only needed to get above a 60% average to pass the class, and the letter grade would not affect my overall GPA.

However, a 60% on this exam seemed like a pipe dream. I not only didn’t study; I routinely fell asleep during lectures and read almost nothing from the course textbook. So I went to the office expecting the worst possible score.

“I want to be honest,” I told the professor. “I do not feel that I am prepared for this exam like I should be. If my grade is poor, I deserve it.”

“Well, just do your best,” the professor said.

So I took the test, and it is no exaggeration to say that I didn’t know a single answer. The entire exam was multiple choice, approximately 30 questions, and I guessed on every single one of them. I handed the exam back feeling defeated.

“Do you want to know how you did now?” The professor asked.

“Not really,” I said. “You can email me.”

That night he did email me. “You must have been too harsh on yourself, because you received a 97%, one of the top grades in the class.”

I couldn’t believe it. Talk about pure, raw luck. What karma brought forth this? Surely it was more than just my honesty, if karma is real.

I paid more attention to lectures going forward, read the textbook, and studied for the final exam. That score ended up being an 80%. Go figure.

People say luck is best when it’s earned. Sometimes I think back to that scenario and wonder if that’s really true. The 97% felt much, much better when I didn’t earn it.

I also think back to that story when something extraordinarily unlucky happens to me. Maybe we all have a luck meter, and once it’s used up, it’s depleted forever, and the universe has to even the tally by doling out bad luck.

And if that’s the case, perhaps the exam wasn’t the best situation to use all my good luck on.

On Megadeth Retiring

Dave Mustaine is calling it a career. I never thought I’d read that in the news. Then again, I never thought I’d hear that Ozzie died. That news walloped me. The Megadeth news just made me determined to catch them on their final tour. It’ll be more than a celebration of music. It’ll be a reflection of where I was in my own life when each of their albums over the last few decades dropped.

I always admired how fiery Mustaine remained throughout the years. Most artists have a relatively short shelf life. It' isn’t easy to maintain the passion required to drive you into the limelight. We’ve been experiencing painfully diluted versions of Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, and Foo Fighters for years, if not decades. Megadeth, surprisingly, has kept their releases steady and consistent. It’s been headbanger after headbanger, right to the end.

The final album drops early next year. What pressure for the new Megadeth guitarist: it’ll be his first and last Megadeth album. At the same time, what an amazing position to be in.

The Rat Trap

“I don’t want the cheese, I just want to get out of the trap.” - Spanish proverb

Society overrates work and underrates leisure. Most have some inkling of this but are too scared to flee the rat race, at least not before the trap is ensnared in the form of old age and decrepitude.

I have fled the rat race several times before and make no apologies for it. In 2017, I fled in order to travel and live in China because the thought of selling everything and traveling for awhile sounded appealing. It was more than appealing, by the way. It was incredible.

You have to ignore popular opinion to flee the rat race. The longer you wait, the more difficult it becomes, mentally, to leave. We become addicted to our corporate benefits just as we do to our smartphones. We steadily conflate our work identity with our real one.

Breaking from the herd is difficult for a social animal to do. “But what will you do?” This is the most unbearable question to answer, yet the answer is simple: what you damn well please for a change.

I left the rat race for the second time this year. I’m learning, slowly but surely, to be idle. I’ve rediscovered the library, walking with no path in mind, and my love of art. I’ve lounged, and spent a lot of time doing a whole lot of nothing. I’ve practiced the art of the afternoon nap. What I haven’t done is stress myself.

The benefits and retirement packages are the cheese. I enjoy quality cheese, but the kind they give you at work is processed garbage.

The Taxes of Life

Taxes are due. There’s no circumventing them. People have been complaining about taxes for thousands of years, but they’ll still be due next year, and fifty years from now (if I’m still around to pay them, which is doubtful).

There’s a tax on everything in life and it’s probably futile trying to resist or stress over it. The tax of food delivery is an exorbitant cost for the driver. The tax of travel is a stressful time at the airport. The tax of running marathons is an undue amount of money spent on shoes, gels, and physical therapy. If you enjoy something, though, you just accept the tax that comes with it. Hating the tax is wasted energy. It’s there whether you like it or not.

I’m not sure if I’ll accept the tax that comes with running marathons after I finish Boston. The aches and lack of weekends are a price to pay, and I look forward to more leisure.

One marathon tax that is rarely discussed is the tax on your cardiovascular system. Even the heart can be overworked, and a number of heart maladies have been found in older endurance athletes.

These taxes don’t appear to exist in the shorter distances, or in pickup basketball, which I have thought of taking on again. I’d like to rediscover my fast twitch. I was actually a mid distance swimmer, after all. The 200 meter freestyle is probably closer to an 800 meter track event than a marathon.

Moderation simply demands less tax in most instances.

The Life Balance Sheet

It’s easy for me to get consumed by unimportant information because by nature I’m a data cruncher. For example, I could tell you within a few million dollars how almost every movie performed opening weekend at the box office this year. What’s this useful for? Knowing and potentially regurgitating, I guess.

It’s more useful to know your own life’s balance sheet. I think I’m getting a better handle of that. It’s one reason why nearing age 40 is a lot less stressful than nearing aging 30. “Know thyself.” While living downtown I’d jump over a broken cement wall with the words “Know thyself” spray painted on it. I imagined there was some significance to this.

At the cusp of 30, I think I viewed careerism with more doom and gloom. I’ve experienced enough now to see a career as something that can provide some value, but is relatively trifling when compared to relationships, or the value of understanding life and death. I’ve seen enough people retire over the years, for example, and seen the aftermath (the company shrugs and hires someone younger, for a cheaper salary). The Protestant work ethic wheel keeps turning.

Put more concisely, I’d like to continue focusing on the things that matter, and continue getting to know myself.

Thoughts Overdressed

It’s better to avoid overdressing both yourself and your thoughts. If you can communicate the message with a scowl, avoid the monologue.

What is the perfect length of a movie or book review? Generally, most video and blog reviews are too long. I rarely criticize a review for being too short. It’s probably because we like to imprint as much of our own character in the reviews as we can. The review becomes a form of self-expression. That’s fine, I think, because the best critics show their quirks. You can show quirks while still be concise though.

You can easily draw out a joke at the dinner table until it dies, after all.

I’m looking forward to doing more this summer by virtue of doing less. Less exercise, but more effective use of the minutes spent exercising. Less stressing, and therefore more daydreaming. Less indecision, and therefore more creating. Less work hours, and therefore more sleep.

I’m running the Boston marathon next week. I’m looking forward to the event, which I think will be a celebration of being able to do something difficult. I’m also looking forward to not devoting so much energy and resources to such a long and painful burn. I’m glad to say that I’ve run marathons, and I’ll be honored to say I ran the Boston marathon, but at the end of the day, I can’t say running that many miles is “fun.”

I had a dream last night in which I was an NBA basketball player handling the ball at the end of a critical game. I sunk a 3 to the roar of the crowd and my team was up by 10.

Suddenly the coach decided to play the bench though, and a gang of diminutive nerds walked onto the court, singing the song “This is Halloween” from the movie Nightmare before Christmas. They paid no attention to the game at all. The other team made layup after layup and I watched our lead fade. Whatever great game I had lost all meaning.

That’s okay, I thought, because they’re my friends.

And maybe that’s the point. To be with people you genuinely like brings more success than any “win.”

The Ebb and Flow of Fortunes

I’ve noticed it is easier to buy nothing when I have nothing to spend. As is human nature, spending inevitably increases with fortune. It is probably less so for me than most people, as I believe I still live a pretty modest lifestyle.

Still, I believe that I possess too much. It is true that I have a pretty small closet, but the closet is rife with stuff. I may own less than most, but I still own much more than I have at times in the past. I’ve experienced what it’s like to own almost nothing (my years in China), and I’ve experienced what it’s like to own everything I had inkling to buy. Of the two, I prefer nothing. It’s more freeing.

Fortunes ebb and flow. Time has humbled me enough to know this. A possession can easily become a burden. Life is tough enough. Best to minimize the burdens if given the option.

I’ve seen how new possessions inevitably rust and fade, and lose their lore. In today’s subscription-based economy, replacements must be purchased at regular intervals. One can easily become a slave to possessions.

I don’t believe owning nothing is necessarily healthy either. Humans evolved by using materials. Shoes allowed us to migrate north, for example.

I do believe I need to reassess what is essential and what was bought on impulse. The mind convinces itself a lot more is “necessary” to buy when there’s money in one’s pockets than it does when the pockets are empty.

How much is enough? This is a difficult question to answer because the answer constantly changes. Generally speaking though, it’s less than a consumer thinks.

If You Want to Learn

“It is impossible for a person to begin to learn what he thinks he already knows.” - Epictetus

Aging humbles me. The older I get, the less I realize I know. When a preconceived truth is proven wrong, a new one takes its place. Then that is proven wrong and I’m left wondering if there’s a red pill somewhere that finally provides the final, definite answer.

One can really go down a rabbit hole of “what ifs” in the search for truth. I remember an old middle school teacher challenging me by saying, “How do you know that God didn’t snap His fingers and create you, and all of your memories, five seconds ago?” The truth is I don’t, nor does anyone. We don’t know how long we’ve actually existed, although we have an educated guess, and we certainly have no clue how long we will continue to exist. Then, we have our theories on what happens after existence.

Somewhere in adolescence, swelled by our pride, I think we set out to form answers to every question. There’s never a time when we seemingly have more of the answers. I could prove any professor wrong back then.

Then time humbles us. It accelerates and snowballs, and as it gathers momentum our precious answers combust. At some point we’re a blank slate again, and maybe that’s for the best.

I still want to learn with whatever capacity I have.

Judgments

I sometimes wake up in the odd hours of the night with a brutal anxiety that I can’t describe. Usually it’s severe enough that my system enters “fight or flight” mode and cannot fall back asleep.

I’m awakened by a dream, usually, in which I’m either replaying a stressful past event or a hypothetical future one. It isn’t so much the event itself that causes me stress as it is my perception of the event and how it might affect me. For example, I often dream of making some awful work-related error that destroys my reputation or gets me fired. Even when awake, it feels too real to erase from my mind. Or my mind amplifies the stress by creating another dozen similar hypothetical scenarios. I ensnare myself in these fictions and convince myself that I am powerless.

It’s never the event that causes stress, as events are just moments in time. It’s our judgment regarding the event, and our ability (or inability) to let go.

Judgment plays a key role in how we shape and present ourselves. If it wasn’t for judgment I’d probably live like Rob Greenfield, owning just a dozen possessions and dumpster diving when I need something else. It’s a shame, really, that I still can’t seem to let go of my own need to uphold a reputation.

I still have time to learn though. Here’s to hoping I figure it out before my 40th birthday.

First Impressions

I try not to act too instinctively, though I think my instinct is usually pretty accurate. It isn’t foolproof though. No one’s instinct is completely foolproof. Some of my best friends in life, for example, were people I was initially intimidated by. I had to peel layers off the onion before realizing what there actually was.

So I try to question and challenge my initial impressions to exhaustion. Sometimes I overdo it and I find my mind in a permanent state of indecision. Sometimes I’m still wrong. But then, everyone and everything deserves a fair chance. Better to think things through than to completely misjudge.

Sometimes it takes years for first impressions to change. Sometimes, through those years, views fluctuate back and forth. I’ve had conflicting views on education and politics for my entire adult life. One should reserve the right to change them.

I know that the first impression I imprint on others is rarely one of the person I am. It takes awhile for my sense of humor to emerge. So I try to consider that, too, when forming first impressions.

Maybe in my constant questioning I’ll arrive at a higher truth.

Assessing Counterfeits

If someone were to offer you gold, the first thing you’d likely do is ascertain its worth. You don’t want to be ripped off, after all.

It seems easier, as society moves online, to accept a headline as true without passing much judgment. We’d be skeptical of free gold but all too eager to accept a stranger’s advertisement or news headline. We often parrot what we read with little questioning. I’m guilty of having done this. What we accept most readily depends on our preexisting ideology.

I aim to test the validity of anything before accepting it. It’s how I hope to refrain from becoming the product of someone else.

I’ve read a lot lately on the health benefits of mushrooms. There seems to be little scientific evidence one way or the other for most of the health claims, but I’ve been trying mushroom coffee in the morning. The brand I’m trying mixes six types of mushrooms: shiitake, lion’s mane, reishi, cordyceps, king trumpet, and turkey tail.

An old work friend recommended it. In the wake of COVID lockdowns, he said, feelings of isolation and depression began to overtake him. He tried mushroom coffee daily and it changed his life for the better. He slept better and felt both more energized and more hopeful about himself. His motivation skyrocketed. He completed his first triathlon and while nearing age 50, possessed the vitality of a 30-year-old.

Why not try it, I figured. He seems trustworthy, and he gave me a free 30 day supply. I’ll try just about anything… “for science.”

So I tried mushroom coffee for about 30 days. Did it make a difference? Well, my sleep improved to the point that it became top notch, I was writing creativity again for the first time in years, and I felt an overall sense of contentment. It could’ve just been the reduction in caffeine. That’s still a benefit though.

It was difficult to be sure what was real and what was placebo, so I went without mushroom coffee for about two weeks. In those two weeks my sleep quality worsened and I found some of my old anxieties slowly returning.

It’s difficult to know for certain what is and isn’t a factor of the mushrooms, but I’ll keep taking the mushroom coffee… for now, at least, it doesn’t seem to be counterfeit.

Moderation?

I always hear that moderation is key and while I understand the logic, I struggle to abide by the mantra. That might be because I cannot recall anything I accomplished via moderation. Maybe it’s just the way I’m wired. I like extremes. I gravitate towards the most aggressive music and am more likely to praise an album if it has a high production value. I never cared for the “garage band” sound. Nicolas Cage is the apotheosis of acting for me. Go big or go home.

I think it’s the same with how I exercise, which is probably what gave me the name “Manimal” in my college days. I never argued that was a good thing. It’s somewhat masochistic, and I know it’s not a “key to longevity.” I tell myself I’ll dial things back but have yet to actually do it. Maybe this will be the year. After the Boston marathon, that is.

I did buy a new bike, a Cannondale Synapse 2, which I’m stoked to try out. I believe my road riding days are mostly over. Drivers scare me. I’ll stick to greenways and trails when possible. I liked the Synapse as a “do it all” bike that can handle most Missouri paths. Also, it’s lavender, and spring is near.

I want to lay off the running a little after this next marathon and enjoy more leisurely cycling. I spent much of 2024 rehabbing from overuse injuries and although I’m feeling fresh now, I’d rather not repeat the same mistake. I’d rather read books than devote another year to physical therapy. Famous last words…

My initial takes on some recent films:

Companion=Excellent

The Monkey=Mildly amusing

Heart Eyes = Brilliant opener, routine otherwise

Daylight Savings

The clocks will move back an hour on Sunday, meaning the sun will set at a later hour. I’m looking forward to that because a longer day is one of the first signs of spring. Budding flowers are soon to follow.

About a month ago I bought a season pass to Alamo Drafthouse cinema, my favorite movie theater chain. I’ve been seeing a lot more movies in theaters. It’s been nice returning to the weekly ritual of going to the movies. The theater feels as much like a home to me as any place I’ve lived.

Rock band Ghost released a new single, “Satanized,” which features an excellent chorus. “Save me from the monster that is eating me.” I have that line stuck in my head.

Regarding “dialing things back,” I’m looking to relax more in the upcoming months, especially after my next marathon. Exercise in particular can be a grind and it’s too easy to fall into the trap of asceticism, a trap laid well by the Protestant work ethic. Leisure is underrated. I aim to do more cycling, but “relaxed” cycling. Riding for the sake of getting fresh air.

I feel as though I’ve reunited with some of my old creative writing peers. Hopefully that provides some inspiration…

Old Strength, and Returning

I started a weekly strength training class called “Old Man Strength” (I guess I’ve finally attained the honors to join this class thanks to Father Time). It was great, I learned some new exercises and had the instructor correct a few bad habits I had on exercises I knew. I will definitely be sore tomorrow. I like that most exercises involved full range of motion, single leg balance, and power. That’s what I was looking for. In fact more important than strength, to me, is power. It’s actually power that typically diminishes at a faster rate than strength when you get past 40. Power is also a more useful tool, in my opinion. You break a brick with your fist primarily with power.

The class started at 7 am and lasted an hour. I had a rare meeting at 8 am and I said screw it, and I made bacon and eggs and ate them slowly instead. I want to enjoy a ritual, not shove food down my throat for the sake of moving forward. People who request meetings at 8 am should be tarred and feathered. A peaceful morning is sacred.

Nothing interesting playing at the cinemas. Squid Game season 2 started slow but I’m invested now that I’m on episode 4. I think the South Koreans are producing a lot of high quality cinema/television.

I hate that my smartphone always follows me around and seems to demand attention. They’re doing their best to become appendages. Nostalgic for the days of arriving home from school and roaming the local neighborhoods and parks at dusk. Maybe once free of the 9-5 I’ll find a way to minimize phone use. You can’t really think in a state of distraction.

Denzel said something along the lines of, “Youth is for learning, the middle is for earning, and the older years are for returning.” Maybe I’m old, or I’m returning a little early. I’m good with either of those.

Back and Forth

I went for a lunch run today because I couldn’t muster the willpower to get a long aerobic effort in before work. My cat woke me up fairly early anyways, as he always does. The second he sees me stir for a moment he seizes the opportunity.

The park where I usually run was covered in snow and ice. Kids were sledding down one of the steeper hills, and I wished that I had a sled at that moment. Instead I ran, back and forth, along a clear road. For some quality I ran at high intensity up an incline, and then jogged back down. I felt sluggish, which I expected after being snowed in the last few days. Back and forth, back and forth. We adults are too linear when there’s a hill to sled down just a quarter mile away.

I watched the movie The Quick and the Dead (1995), a star-studded revisionist western that few people know about. It was one of Russell Crowe’s and Leo DiCaprio’s earlier films (before Gladiator and Titanic). It starred Sharon Stone in the lead role as “The Lady,” who is essentially the female version of the Man with No Name.

Overall I liked the film and you can clearly see the Raimi influence on the gunfights. The classic cartoonish zoom into a wound that we saw countless times in Evil Dead films works very well here.

Most of what I read on the film described it as a “revisionist western” because the film places a female in the role typically assigned to a male. I don’t think it shatters the mold so much as offers a fun spin on it. Maybe “adjustment western” is more accurate. The viewing experience is more or less the same. It’s a good viewing experience though, and the cast and crew did a grew job making the movie.

Sharon Stone was convincing in the lead role, blending grit with vulnerability to add depth to her character. Leo/Russell are always great. Gene Hackman always thrives as a villain.

I wish the film spent more time with the other scoundrels in the gun contest. They were an interesting bunch, a mixture of thieves, assassins, and escaped convicts. But at under 2 hours the film could only do so much. Still, if I were to write a western film today it would tell their stories.

I’m one episode into Creature Commandos and so far it’s doing nothing for me. I didn’t laugh or find any of the characters particularly compelling. I thought Gunn nailed the humor and characters in his Suicide Squad and was surprised that I didn’t care for this one. I’ll watch a few more episodes and see if I change my mind.

Is the Grass Greener?

I have contemplated leaving the 9-5 grind for several years, or maybe since I first entered it, which is more than several years ago. I left it once for a China adventure, which is another story to tell. That was only a brief diversion though, and I eventually returned to the grind.

I fear leaving the grind because of the mantra, “the grass is always greener on the other side.” “Be careful what you wish for” is another way of putting it. Safety becomes a drug that the corporate worker becomes dependent on.

There are plenty of reasons to hate the grind and one can easily find a YouTube video that explains these reasons in good detail. It’s often soul crushing. You’re just a number. You’re a cog in the wheel. You’re exploited. Most of the relationships are shallow. They’ll replace you the second they can. Emails spur anxiety. Productivity is punished with more tasks, rather than rewarded the ability to create more. The tasks are mostly empty and meaningless. The list goes on.

So we find ourselves listless, sitting, staring at a screen, and wondering if this is really it.

And so many of us tolerate the grind because “at least we have that 401!” I’ve thought this and even said it out loud countless times. Or we stay in the grind because we’ve sunken so far in debt that we have no choice. Or because we’ve established a lifestyle that requires it. Or because we fear the removal of perks that we’ve become addicted to (it’s true, at least, that the 401k is an incredible thing).

Contemplating the risks of the present and future have often rendered me immobile for long periods of time, and I’ve been immobile on this decision for quite awhile. I imagine every possible scenario and live it in my mind. A calculated risk for me is often well calculated.

For example, let’s assume I leave the 9-5 grind with what I have now, and I have enough to coast to old age, and perhaps even to the end. What if I get a debilitating health condition in the later years and lack the funding to treat it? Funding that I would’ve had, if I stuck it out another two years in the 9-5 grind?

And yet, who’s to say just how much labor guarantees health security? The true answer, if one really thinks logically, is that insurance guarantees nothing. Society has told us that security is a purchasable commodity. It is this lie that strips us of the nearest thing to security: a healthy lifestyle.

If senility eventually overcomes me, does security even matter? If my mind is gone, my body might as well be too. And if I’m hit with a crippling physical malady? What use is a nice insurance package to life if I can’t go outside anyways?

Which of my fears are the most logical? Surely I’d at least have health insurance in old age to cover most of these morbid scenarios? But what if the cost escalates so high that I eventually cannot pay for it? And to counter this point, if I actually took care of myself, wouldn’t this be better insurance than even the best health insurance?

The greatest health insurance is a solid diet and routine movement. It doesn’t guarantee long life, but it increases the odds. A nice insurance package has significant drawbacks if one lives an unhealthy lifestyle. And the percentage of people living healthy lifestyles in the 9-5 grand is disturbingly low.

Most of my fears assume I would not make money after leaving the 9-5. I also know this to be false. Freelance work is more prevalent than ever.

So, there is an overall case for leaving. Most of my fears can be argued as illogical.

I’ve also slaved away for years already, storing as much as I can in order to no longer be dependent on long work hours. I’m approximately halfway through life, which arguably is too long to drudge away at meaningless tasks that satisfy only other people. I can see signs of this drudgery in the dark circles beneath my eyes and the overall exhaustion that often incapacitates me. I believe that broken people are chronically exhausted. The soul is mortally wounded and as a result, we drag ourselves, kicking and screaming, to perform every little task.

I seem to only recover on vacation, but the recovery doesn’t last as long these days.

I want to spend more of my life creating.

Creativity has a shelf life. We have a shelf life. The 9-5 tends to shake the hourglass violently enough that the sand falls faster. When is the right time to walk away? How much security is enough? These are questions we all must ask ourselves.

And then I ask myself again, as I imagine the glowing exit sign hanging over me as I walk out of the 9-5 grind for the last time: will the grass really be greener?